What once ensured that I sat at a table next to the teacher is now posted, Monday through Friday.

I've contributed to perhaps the best humor compilation I've ever read. Available now on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Of Beauty and Gratitude

The weekend looms, my friend, and Friday morning here in My Fair Town is tinted with the pinks and greens of spring.

It wasn't much of a winter, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy our luck at witnessing another spring.

But the weekend! What does the weekend hold? If only there was some way of knowing, some way of predicting what we could expect...

But there is! For as it is known in these parts -- particularly the parts between my ears -- my iPod, set to "shuffle" and played during my Friday-morning commute, knows all, tells some.

All of life is open to interpretation, of course, but the urge to hit the road will be marked. Do it.

I, for one, will be seeing family this weekend.

Have I told you that my sister is beautiful?

You can imagine how this has gotten on my nerves over the years.

Not that I’m not attractive as well, but Karen has never had an awkward phase, has never been overweight, required glasses, or split her pants in public.

Naturally, I’m against this.

I mean, her beauty doesn’t make me love her less, but it does make me wish she’d get a pimple or two, if only for the weekend.

We’ve not let this unfortunate case of being pigeon-holed by our parents as The Pretty One (her) and The Smart One (me) get in the way of our relationship, however. I’ve had some very good times with my sister, including drunken arm wrestling and anonymously mailing her coupons for gas-reduction products addressed to Bloated and Musical Occupants.

I was thinking about her the other day, thinking about beauty and what it means, and I remembered a little Vietnamese restaurant that opened in our town when Karen and I were teenagers.

Minnesota, in the late 70s/early 80s, welcomed to its chilly bosom a large number of immigrants from Viet Nam, primarily Hmong. One minute there were no Hmong, and the next there were plenty.

Who are Hmongs? Oh, just a mountain-dwelling people who were the United States’ allies in the Viet Nam War.

If you’ve seen the movie Gran Torino, those are Hmongs, there with Clint Eastwood.

And yes, the Lutherans sponsored them.

The new Asian place was pretty decent, especially considering that Asian restaurants in most parts of Minnesota in the early 80s tended to be run by people whose last name was Larson, included entrees heavily laden with celery, and came with horrible packets of dark-brown liquid purported to be soy sauce.

And so it was that we were in this restaurant one afternoon, no doubt picking up and dropping our food with the chopsticks we were determined to master, when a woman about four foot nothing approached our table.

I finished growing up in a town chock fuLL of immigrants (Germans from Russia a hundred years ago) who were difficult to understand, and I was told the eXact same message but I interpretted it as "Your brother is messed up very much", but this is confusing as I have two brothers, and obviously overrated sisters.

Reminds me of my sister and I - she is 84 and sent me a card recently showing two old crones - like us - saying:'Was I the clever one and you the pretty one or was it the other way round?'Often the pretty one's looks fade and the clever one grows into her face.

How about a parenting story or an "independent woman" story or a "good advice" story for Chicken Soup for the Soul? How about a "girls night out" or a story about a dog or cat for Not Your Mother's Books? How about a story about family for Linda O'Connell's Not Your Mother's Book (www.publishingsyndicate.com)? Or a book about being a mom or being a mom-to-be for Dianna Graveman's Your Mother's Book? I know you have some tales to tell, Pearl.

Take solace in this: outer beauty sags and wrinkles and gets peppered with age spots. Inner beauty just gets better!

As I sit at Mother's bedside counting her laboured breaths between periods of apnea, I think back to all she has passed on to my sister and I over the years, genetically and thru life's ups and downs. There are many kinds of "beautiful". I sure do love my sister, even though she is slimmer, richer and more popular than i am. Have a happy Easter.Rosemary

Loved this piece Pearl, especially the "beh-yee boodeefo!” part; though I really have no clue about the songs on the Ipod.

I've been once told that I laugh like my daughter . I treasured that. Never knew we inherited stuff from the children, in this case adopted and commented on because they had a different complexion color. I thought that was, as you say, beh-yee boodeefo....

i will be looking for my intergalactic tiger as i head into the weekend. my sister is one of those blessedly lovely, tall, tan, thin types, nothing like myself. i'm so glad she's 11 years younger than me so that i didn't have to hate her for the attention she would have no doubt stolen from me.thankfully, she's also prone toward mishaps, much like myself. it makes her even more lovable.

I have no sisters, so I guess I could consider myself both the pretty one AND the smart one.

However, I'm reminded of the book, YHE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, where there's a character who's the world's shortest giant, the world's tallest midget, the world's thinnest fat man & the world's fattest thin man--yep. all ONE guy!

My mother was a plain 'home-Mum' with a pleasant nature - never had a nasty word to say about anybody and was very repected by others outside the family. While my younger brother was always the 'family favourite' I knew that my mum had a special spot for myself (she was always so forgiving towards me whenever I was 'in trouble' (again!, as my sisters would add - sighhhh!)

Bravo. I love how you took us to so many silly places and tied it together with a sweet message. I can relate too. I was the smart sister, and my sis was the perfectly pretty one. That's still the case.

...and then there were those of us from (not ugly) rather ordinary parents. While young, fresh and fit we pass for beautiful, in our way.. but as time goes by, as the Australian sun burns any semblance of beauty from our pores, as our noses and ears continue to grow long after sensible body parts have stopped growing... we are no longer considered beautiful. If you want me I'll be over there crying in the corner..

Well done for being such a good sport, and not making your sisters life hell as you hated her for her supposed good looks.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as you know. To a blind person everyone is beautiful.

Inner beauty is far more valuable and yet we seem to focus on outer beauty as if it is worth something more of our adoration.Probably worse as men drool over it so much more than women.We all got what we got and in this way cannot change much, except for make-up or surgery..I did change my name, as it suited who I am rather than who I was.That gets its fair share of odd comments..lol